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While my reflection on the first 1/2 of my term as moderator is in the works, I wanted to first get offer up some thoughts that I am SURE will get some comments and I hope some good discussion: membership decline.

As you know, the most recent membership numbers where just released and, for various arguable reasons, the PC(USA) declined in membership by 69,381 members. As we see these numbers announced each year, the theorizing and punditry around the decline is nothing new and I suspect it will continue as long as there are people with opinions and who care about the church.

The prevailing reasons that are usually sent my way are basically three:

We are in decline because we are too liberal, having stopped being a people of The Book and are caving to cultural trends especially around homosexuality.

We are in decline because we are far too conservative, no longer live the love that Christ calls us to and the world no longer sees us as a place of welcome.

Our 1960's members trends were but a blimp in our history for churches in the United States . . . so numbers need to be taken in context.

Now it is obviously easy to assign blame for our decline in membership, often falling into a far too simple rhetoric that there is indeed only ONE reason for our decline. Now regardless of how you value the use of numbers as measure of worth, I think that we are more nuanced than that and that if we really think about it there are probably multiple reasons for our decline.

Now as a new church development pastor, I have never been solely driven by numbers. Not surprisingly, like most things, I find God speaking to me in the gray, somewhere between only finding worth in numbers and thinking that numbers are silly and irrelevant. I think numbers are an important measurement that can give us some useful indications of trends and developments, but we can also get into trouble when our ONLY drive is numerical. In the end, I want us to impact lives that in turn impact the world and believe that if we are faithful to God's calling upon our lives, we will grow to the size that God hopes us to be.

Still, our decline may give us some indications of our life together and I am not immune from offering some thoughts in the issue. Now I have written upon this before, Number 1 reason why PC(USA) churches are dying a slow, painful, sad, drawn-out, death and other happy thoughts, but let me add something more as I have continued to listen to and reflect on what I am hearing as Moderator. I believe that one of the main factors in our failure to grow is that we still operate with an institutional worldview that is not built for the fluid, adaptive and complex nature of the world today. Theological and ideological perspectives aside, we – at all levels of our church life – still operate with a 1960's worldview that simply does not speak to the world today. We spoke well to the United States culture during a long stretch of our denominational life, but we have forgotten how to speak to the world in a way that offers a transformational experience of the Gospel life in a Presbyterian context.

I grieve this because I have been so fed and formed by my Presbyterian heritage and deep theological history that I am compelled to find ways to meaningfully pass this rich tradition on to my kids. But sadly, as I look around the church, those under 35 are painfully absent. And while many of us would like to hold onto our youthful spirits for as long as we can, 60 is not the new 50 and 40 is not young. We who hold power and influence in the church must stop pretending that we are the future. We are not. In fact, as those with power and influence in the church, if we do not joyfully embrace our changing rolls in our institutional life, we will die with no reason to expect resurrection. Simply put, we must ask ourselves hard questions and learn to adapt if we are to impact the world as Presbyterians for any length of time into the future.

To get things started, here are some of the questions I think we need to address:

Is Jesus enough? What ARE our essentials and non-negotiables as we gather as a denominational gathering of the Body of Christ?

Do we live the Trinity? Do we fully understand the nature of living in community and living out our understanding of the Triune God?

Are we committed to connectionalism and if so, how committed are we to creating healthy Presbyteries? Because unless we have Presbyteries that are vibrant and at the heart of our lives together, we are no longer Presbyterian.

Can we handle an abundance of manifestations of the Presbyterian family where congregations look, feel and operate in drastically different ways?

Can we fathom the idea of the death of some parts of our structural and institutional life together trusting that where resurrections is to happen it will happen?

Are those who hold power and authority willing to create space for who are not part of our life but will best be able to help us navigate our way into their world?

Can we find a way for an institution to live the peace of Christ in a world of chaos?

Will we be able to respond well even if the answer is, "We do not have the capacity to adapt, the time of our current way of being is done."

Can we truly embrace the unknown, but yet joyfully strive to seek God's intentions?

These are obviously not all the questions that we need ask of ourselves and as hard as it may be to believe, I would not want to place values on the answers to these questions. But, if we do not venture onto some deeper questions about our future, we will never fully be able to navigate our way into who God hopes us to become as a Presbyterian people.

So . . . there you have it, what other questions do we need to ask of ourselves? What are more reasons for our decline? Does it even matter? What say ye Presby bloggosphere?

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Jesus Christ demands we measure Medicare overhead as a % of dollars and not per patient (see article below)? Jesus Christ demands we ignore Medicare fraud, when things like preventing fraud are the reasons for ‘overhead’? Jesus Christ teaches us that Medicaid and the VA are efficient? Verse, please?
Jesus Christ demands we ignore the question of whether it is profits in the US that drive medical innovation, and the lives we may save now will be more than offset by lives lost in the future due to undeveloped medicines? Jesus demands we ignore the question of other nations’ lower costs being freeloading on the US, who pays for innovation?
Jesus Christ demands we ignore the idea of “regulatory capture”, where the platonic ideal of a hypothetical perfect system meets lobbyists for entities to be impacted (or Jesus demands campaign finance ‘reform’ to make sure the wrong people don’t have enough political clout to stop the initiatives Jesus endorses)?
Jesus Christ says this is constitutional? You consider that a settled issue? Does Jesus, or was Jesus silent about the 9th and 10th amendments to the US Constitution?http://www.layman.org/news.aspx?article=26247
Presbyterian Church (USA) Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons weighed in on the national health care reform debate Friday by reiterating a resolution from the denomination’s 2008 General Assembly that demeans the quality of American health care, condemns profits earned by private insurance companies, dedicates mission money to lobbying efforts and supports the call for a government-run, single-payer system…
…A resolution approved by the 218th General Assembly, which met last summer in San Jose, Calif., outlines the denomination’s support of a single-payer system of health insurance for the country’s uninsured. The action also routed $25,000 from the denomination’s mission budget to a political action network called Presbyterian Health, Education and Welfare Association for the purpose of hosting 10 regional, one-day seminars supporting universal health care….

One more for Kevin,
Article in Saturday’s Tennessean caught my eye. They talked about some of the churches in Middle TN presbytery, including Jim Kitchens of Second Pres.:http://www.tennessean.com/article/20090801/NEWS06/908010329/1017/NEWS03/Plun
“Local churches have grown by doing the basics right, said the Rev. Jim Kitchens, pastor of Second Presbyterian in South Nashville. If they do a good job taking care of youth and children, that can draw in young families.
Second Presbyterian has started several initiatives that bring in newcomers. This year, eight young adult volunteers are taking part in the Nashville Epiphany Project. They’ll attend the church, live in a Christian community, and volunteer in programs like the Martha O’Bryan Center.
The church also is up front about being a more progressive church, and welcoming to people who are gay and lesbian. It’s part of the Faith and Justice Congregational Network, with ties to Sojourners, a progressive Christian magazine. That more inclusive view helped bring Kim Huguley and her husband to Second Presbyterian.
“We were looking for a church with a bigger view of who is in God’s family,” she said. “We’d been looking for a church for several months. The first time we walked in, we knew it was a good match.”
Kitchens tries not to worry about the future of his denomination. Less than half his congregation grew up Presbyterian, and most newcomers come from a number of denominational backgrounds.
For most people, he said, denominational ties matter less than making sure a local church is a good fit.”
A good example of a Reciprocating Church.
Best,
john

Now we are talking. Excellent comment, Kevin.
There is a lot to go into reasons why we are not affiliating with volunteer organizations. Most of these organizations had their big day post WW2 as our greatest generation was rebuilding society. Times have changed. Most people I know my age (48 and younger) are so strung out with suburbia, two jobs, who all knows. The last thing my folks see as relevant is the presbytery connection (this goes for all three congregations I have pastored), even as I have been quite involved and always urging and trying to find ways to connect. It isn’t that the presbytery is doing anything wrong, nor the people in the congregations. They are just on different paths.
You are exactly right about getting involved as a citizen and how the church can facilitate that. For me it is about encouraging involvement, and giving people permission (and the property) to be creative and do stuff.
Frankly, all the worry over this is moot. We are facing major, major changes caused by energy and environment. In the coming years (less than a decade), we will desperately need social networks for basic needs. The church will be re-created again as it has through history.

Hi Bruce,
I appreciate your views and especially the ideas around creating conversational space and a consideration of the death of some parts of our structural and institutional life together. Yes. Resurrection can occur. But it is not likely to occur without our being acted on by an outside force. It occurs to me that God (outside force) often intervenes with honest, authentic, reliable data. In my view, it is precisely this lack of data that keeps any remedy to the membership decline shrouded. I offer what I hope is a shroud-lifting comment that may be resurrection material. You decide. Follow.
News of the steepest membership loss in twenty-five years comes as no surprise to Newark Presbytery in New Jersey. We address the evidence of these statistics every day. I am proud of our growing effort to build collaborative energy to increase the capacity of every one of our congregations to be viable, healthy, and effective. Each of our churches is a delivery station of the Good News. Moving forward is a challenge. How we respond to our membership decline is important.
I continue to listen and engage in conversation with our denominational upstream in Louisville about our decline. The PC(USA) messages have included: Try harder at what you have been doing; Try something new; Invite neighbors to church, Blend your worship, Become multicultural, Support General Assembly Mission directly; Apply for grants; and in the meantime, Louisville will downsize the denominational structure (again). We still decline.
The reason that these directives often fail to alter our experience of institutional trauma or the congregational outcomes from decades of decline is that Louisville attributes the decline, at least in part, to death, people being removed from the rolls, and to a “gradual” drifting away from our congregations. Gradual drifting? What’s gradual about twenty-five years of consistent decline?
Even the Pew Forum, whose research was referenced by denominational execs, seems more like a distraction than a reason, as it identifies why people change religious affiliation rather than addressing the real reasons people do not affiliate at all.
North Americans have consistently withdrawn their volunteer association affiliation for more than thirty years. The questions we ask define our assumptions. In this case, the PC(USA) and Pew, ask the question: “How do our neighbors choose between Protestant or Roman Catholic affiliation?” suggesting that the focus of our concern is religious affiliation. The critical question is not Protestant v Catholic, or Christian v Muslim v Jewish, etc. The critical, core, question we must consider together is: “Why do people fail to affiliate with volunteer associations at all, church or otherwise?” Almost every volunteer association in America has been in decline for decades. From the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, AMA, PTA, Elks, Lions, etc., to the political, civic, religious, and professional groups, membership is down.
There is a direct correlation between the membership decline of volunteer associations in North America and the associations’ lack of community engagement. Even more consequential, corresponding benefits from these association networks to influence reciprocal behaviors (doing things for each other) have diminished.
It has been documented that Americans have steadily reduced their investment in “outside the family” activities. Our North American cultural milieu has normalized self-engagement and isolation. Our increasingly time-shifted ways to connect has corresponded to the rise of social media sites and technologies. We no longer derive value from connecting in person. In short, the church has experienced a reduction in its membership. However, the reduction in membership corresponds to the church’s prior failure to return sufficient value to the community outside itself which could have sustained the community gathering “at the church.” This destructive cycle has been perpetuated over the decades.
As Presbyterians, we have focused on ourselves, mistakenly believing that our “decline” was a Presbyterian one. We seemed to think it was our problem. How many curriculums, conferences, coaching, and action plans directed us to do something within ourselves and our space without realizing it was our almost narcissistic framing of the problem and our solution that made the situation worse. As a denomination, we missed opportunities to lead a revival of the re-investment of social capital, volunteerism, and instead, with little reflection, followed the status quo.
The good news is that our decline can be reversed by swift and decisive realignment of our congregational resources to tangibly benefit the communities we are located in. Our disconnect from the community reduced the community’s connection to us. Instead of merely asking our congregants to bring a friend to church, (a fine but insufficient remedy), we must ask our congregants to re-engage in their communities. We need to invite our congregants back into their communities.
The Church is peculiarly well-suited for this transformational mandate of re-engaging communities since God has sent the Church into the world, not to be served, but to serve. We can lead our congregations as servants, empowering them to become a Reciprocating Church. A Reciprocating Church is a church that reinvests its experience of God’s love into the world, so that their community knows God loves it, too. A Reciprocating Church will ensure congruence between its congregation and building capacities and by God’s grace, be a healthy and effective demonstration of the Christian gospel in the Church and the world. The opportunities to be a Reciprocating Church are huge. Let’s explore them, transforming together.
Kevin
…………………………………………………….
Dr. Kevin Yoho,
General Presbyter
Newark Presbytery, PC(USA)kevin@newarkpresbytery.orghttp://www.newarkpresbytery.orghttp://www.kevinyoho.com
Twitter: @kevinyoho

Susan,
Birthrate? That is assuming we don’t evangelize and only grow by current members having babies—who then must stay in the PCUSA, a rather big assumption in today’s world where there isn’t much “brand loyalty” out there.
The sort of thinking reflected in that Presbyterians Today bit is part of why we are where we are.
Think about this—in 1969 the U. S. population was right at 200 million with reported church attendance of 46%. That would mean 92 million in church during an average week.
2009 the U. S. population is 306 million and even with the drop of church attendance to 40% by some studies, that means 122 million in church during an average week.
This means, while we were undergoing this long-term loss of members and shrinking in size, the numbers of people in church increased by 30 million people.
Let that soak in for a bit and you get a better picture of how bad things are going for us. We shrink while there is great growth in numbers going on.
God’s blessings to you,
Matt Ferguson
Hillsboro, IL

A couple of years ago an article in Presbyterians Today claimed that sociologically speaking 70% of our denominational decline since the 1960’s was due to decreased birthrates (see july/aug 2007 here: http://www.pcusa.org/research/gofigure/index.htm). I see this in the small town in which I serve where many friends in conservative / non-denom churches have 3 or four children. I showed the article to our Session, but only one Elder and I were of “child-bearing age” and neither of us were interested. Good job Bruce for increasing our odds — I’m just hoping to replace myself.
I heard Stacey Johnson (I hope I’m remembering this right Stacey) suggest last year how amazing it would be for the powers-that-be in the institution to simply hand over the resources, investments, trusts to the young and see what kind of ministry might happen. Who knows what G-d might do?

I am late to this conversation, but thought I would offer a few thoughts anyway. In the history of Christendom, people went to church (or were church members) because they were forced to by either political or social pressure. Now churches find that they need to market their wares.
I appreciate your thoughtful questions but I wonder if the reasons aren’t due to our ineptitude but to social factors beyond our control?
There is an assumption that church is good for people whether they think so or not. We just need to show these boneheads that we can overcome their superficial objections and meet their needs.
It could be that folks simply aren’t interested and are living perfectly happy and fulfilled lives without us.

Hey Bruce,
I’ll be thinking on your questions for some time. It looks as though books like “The Starfish and the Spider” should be mainstay guides for church leaders at the moment. Tod Bolsinger spent quite alot of time reflecting on Presbyterian leadership in this starfish paradigm (http://bolsinger.blogs.com/weblog/starfish-and-the-spider/). It’s worth the time!

I’d like to speak to Martha’s comment re: why we exist. For our children? For ourselves? For the glory of God (whatever that means? Because my hunch is that we differ on what this means. Back to the liberal/conservative debate.)
If we take seriously The Great Commission, I believe we are supposed to exist to make disciples of all nations. In other words, we are to exist for those who do not yet follow Jesus. The problem is that we tend to exist for ourselves – to comfort our own harried souls, to serve our own needs and personal preferences, to have a place to be married/buried. The basic conflict in the congregation I serve seems to be this one: some believe the church exists for them and others believe the church exists for those “out there.”
Good post, Bruce, as always.

I know whenever these numbers come out, people tend to blame the loss on whatever it is that we don’t like about the church and then espouse as the answer whatever we think the church should be. A few observations:
1. Certainly you have to see some of this loss as due to issues related to how we are dealing with the homosexuality issue. A good portion of the loss was from congregations leaving and moving to more theologically conservative congregations. I don’t see how you can debate that and I suspect these kinds of losses will only continue.
2. If someone in business sees a company losing market share, the first thing they do is to look at other companies that are gaining market share. I suspect the main reason we’re unwilling to do that is because most of the churches/denominations that are growing are theologically conservative (even if they are progressive and innovative in their programs or worship). Southern Baptists are probably the best example. But look also at Calvary Chapel, Willow Creek, Saddleback, and the wonderfully Calvinistic Mars Hill in Seattle. All rapidly growing while we shrink. All theologically classically orthodox. Why not see what makes them successful and then see how that can apply to us?
3. Bruce, I know there is much to admire in your list and it mirrors a lot of what I hear in the “emergent church” circles. But to be honest, most of the people I hear talking about this haven’t really shown it in action (with the exception of Erwin McManus at Mosaic). It’s often presented by people who have little real experience in congregations that have actually grown to significant numbers and stayed there. I see even your congregation has shrunk to the point where there are financial difficulties. These are all great theories, I just don’t see them working anywhere.

There are some good general “my leaving the church” stories on exchristian.net if you skip over the atheist advocacy.
“Yet, look at the impact and change they were able to bring about.”
You mean by becoming the State Church after an emperor thought Jesus took his side in one of Rome’s civil wars because he had a “vision”, with said emperor then ordering the church around and having quite a say in the development of Christianity? 🙂 (Or more likely, a would-be emperor thinking the early church was a big, untapped source of political support for his becoming a military dictator over a big chunk of the world’s population and the church compromising itself to gain political influence over a new military dictator.)
I just don’t think Jesus said one word about, for example, whether a national healthcare system will save money thru efficiency or thru arbitrary rationing, or whether it will trade access by having money for access by having political connections. Not to start a debate on that specific topic, but I’m just saying no matter how convinced you are that Jesus supports your end goal, that doesn’t mean that Jesus thinks your means will work or agrees with your method. All government activities are coercive – “Jesus would support this goal” doesn’t necessarily mean “Jesus would support having armed agents of The State make people act in accordance with this goal thru explicit and implicit threats of violence”.
To bring this back to the topic, with fewer people being straight line political party supporters, maybe the key to church recovery ISN’T becoming indistinguishable from a political party with a laundry list of political actions to support. Do you want to become an organization that circles the wagons around something like Clinton’s perjury about adultery or W’s questionable use of WMD intelligence (or outright lies, take your pick) to get us into a war just to maintain its power and influence? That is the mindset that leads to a church circling the wagons around pedophile priests (that’s a reference to what’s been in the news, not a vague accusation that isn’t already in the public sphere).
It’s not even a matter of agreement or disagreement. A local Big Baptist church pastor writes for the local paper as a pastor every now and then. His last two articles have been on lowering taxes and teaching creationism in schools. I agreed with the politics of the first and not of the second, but had the same reaction to BOTH when I saw them. My reaction was “you’re a minister, shut up about that”.

Mark,
Many young folks outside the church may think we are too conservative but, if you care to take a look, many of those young folks are searching for something solid and are finding their ways to conservative churches. Just take at look at Tim Keller in PCA and what he is spreading through his work (recent Christianity Today feature on him) or Mark Driscoll and the whole Acts 29 group, and that the Roman Catholic Church returned to growth under Pope JP 2 and his strong movement back to a more conservative way, and that the Southern Baptist Church has, for the most part, been one of the few growing denominations, and . . . We have a growing number of younger folks here (19 years ago we were 80% over 65 now we likely have the reverse / are far, far younger).
And yes, I do think we are politically liberal and that is a problem because the majority in the pew and on Session and even in the pulpit disagree with those pronouncements and it causes more division.
JS Howard,
You have a good viewpoint to consider. I heard Larry Osbourn (Northcoast church) make the observation that the early church did have political rallies, etc. and were living in a society worse than ours. Yet, look at the impact and change they were able to bring about. Maybe the link will take you there. If so, Osbourne’s comments are on track about 3 minutes inhttp://www.northcoastchurch.com/fileadmin/audios/Simple/cs04/cs04player.html If that doesn’t work, his sermon from February 2 – 3, track 4, title Ministry Made Simple.
Bruce,
I should say I like your first question on essentials. After all these years (I have written and spoken on this topic for nearly 20 years now—shows you how much I impact) “#1. in essentials, unity; #2. in non-essentials, #3. liberty; in all things, charity” but the key to part 2 in that observation is doing #1. Until we do #1, we will never be able to allow for #2 because we will see everything as part of the debate to getting to #1 and we will then debate and argue over way too many things to make sure something is or isn’t include in #1 or doesn’t impact things when we finally try to define #1. Define the essentials, keep them as few, and then we can more readily move on to liberty in non-essentials.
God’s blessings to you all,
Matt Ferguson,
Hillsboro, IL

I have a question for you. Pretend God Himself decends from Heaven and tells you that, no matter what, no politician or arm of government will ever listen to anything the church has to say, so political activity on the part of the church (for “family values” or for “social justice”) is pointless.
Where would you have the church spend the time, money, and energy that would be freed up from political activity, pronouncements on proposed laws, and other attempts to gain power to make others do what you believe Jesus wants them to do?

Matt,
While you may find the PCUSA liberal, I think that if you ask the unchurched – particularly the young unchurched – you’ll find that in many ways the PCUSA is considered conservative. The political positions may be liberal, but compared to no faith at all, Robert’s Rules and sitting in rows listening to organ music with a bunch of gray-haired folks in suits is very conservative.
That’s not all the PCUSA is, but that’s what it looks like to those who haven’t experienced it.

Thanks Bruce for your words. It was very timely for me to read. I serve a small church that is declining and recently they were celebrating the reason for existing as a church is “for our children.” These children are 20 somethings are grown, moved out of town and come home maybe once or twice a year. As a pastor, it made my blood boil. This church (and I suspect it isn’t a unique situation) has forgotten why we have a church.
I think you are correct that it has nothing to do with being too liberal or conservative. As someone who leans one way or the other depending on the issue, I know that I have a lot of company in the church.

Thank you all for your wonderfully thoughtful response and interactions. I know it seems like I say that all the time, but hey, truth hurts 😉 I actually have not felt the need to respond to folks on this one because of the depth at which folks have obviously been thinking about this.
Just a few thoughts . . .
GEOFF – Thanks for your notes as always. First, as you know I come out of campus ministry and have always been a advocate of campus ministry. At the same time, I think there is some challenges that face ministries that have for so long been so tied into denominational support. I REALLY think that we all need to stop giving so much worth to the institution and stop seeing our only future to be lived with their support, especially fiscally. I think that if there is passionate ministry happening, we need to be able to find those who will support it. Yes, the denomination will need to be supportive as they can, but the realities of the future, like NCD’s and other like ministries, is that the very assumption that a national body will or should have “control” over the entities it supports is changing. Campus ministry is the most scrappy and I think most prepared for what is happening in the world as a whole and some need to embrace the opportunity to see new ways of building a ministry presence on our campuses.
TALITHA – YES, great questions. I guess, I don’t really care about preserving THIS particular institution but finding ways that core values of being Presbyterian may be preserved. Now if our connectional nature is over, that is one thing, but if we beleive that the nature of our governance is important, there is a need for some kind of institutional structure.
STUSHIE – I never said post-modernism is THE ANSWER, but if we can;t wrap our heads and hearts around the very nature of it we will never know what we stand against and what we embrace. I know you may think so, but I am NOT an “everything goes” kind of guy. Now we may disagree about how we interpret our understandings of Jesus and the trinity in our lives, but I can firmly say that in the midst of all of this I DO have absolute faith in Christ.

Post-modernism is not the answer, Bruce. Absolute faith in Christ is. it’s as simple as that, but too many people don’t want to read or hear the truth. We have strayed from Christ and syncretized our beliefs to fit in with a world view. We have forgotten that Christ is Sovereign of the World. Our loyalty needs to be re-aligned to Him.

Hey Bruce-
Always a thoughtful, reflective post and I thank you for raising these important questions. Without belaboring what’s been said above, mainly because I agree with the majority of the comments as to why we are declining (and it has nothing to do with being too liberal/conservative…), I would simply offer that we need to have some serious conversation and come to some serious conclusions as to what is essential and what is non-essential. I think this conversation particularly needs to take place on the local, congregational level. The young people I am around and in relationship with are seeking inspiration. They want to make a difference. They want to know if the church is a competent and credible vehicle to pour their resources into to make that difference. Because we cannot articulate with any kind of clarity the Gospel or the essentials of our faith, we are unable to present a compelling and inspiring vision to anyone, much less young people who still believe (thankfully!) that the world can change. It would be a truly courageous step if you, as the moderator, would press for this conversation around essentials. Surely we can come to some agreement on some basic tenets…like the Nicene Creed/Apostle’s Creed for instance? From there we could engage congregations in a deep study of their identity in light of these “essential tenets” which in turn could lead to a fruitful clarification/articulation of God’s mission for them.
Peace,
Doug

Thanks Bruce for this and your earlier blog. At a small membership church meeting yesterday I stated that the first place we need to start, in terms of understanding and moving through these times of our collective lives, is that God has a future in mind for our church. Unless we grasp the depth of that, then we’re only reacting to the chaos around us, instead of engaging (an overused word, admittedly) it.
When tectonic plates collide, new worlds are formed.
Peace

Bruce,
If those are the only 3 theories that you’re hearing, then you have to go incognito and visit some churches without a schedule or an invitation. I’m afraid that you may be getting insulated within the institution.
Those who are speaking of the 4th theory – that we’re shrinking because we are failing to include/inspire the new generations – are right on the money. And more than that …. one thing that I learned at the Princeton seminary on Emerging Adulthood (18-29) was that we need to give young people real responsibility AND let them fail a bit while backstopping them. We have become risk-averse and afraid to try new things – or we try them with a top-down huge investment in a “program”.
This is why things like Beau Weston’s “Re-building the Presbyterian Establishment” paper give me fits. They are trying to solve the opposite problem to the one that we have.

1 and 2 (too conservative and too liberal) aren’t mutually exclusive. They are both two sides of “Jesus died to give me political power – I know what Jesus wants and I’m going to use The State to make you obey him”. I left because of the combination of a too liberal denomination and too conservative churches. Some of us don’t like having political positions shoved down our throats by either side.

and another question. How much does it matter that we preserve our institution? Can we be a movement? (instead of, or at least alongside our institutionality)
if we “die” to the outer observer, have we planted seeds that will spring up in new ways? Bob Coote brought my attention to the fact that the mustard plant (to which Jesus likens the kingdom, now, the kingdom =/= pc(USA) but we can use the same metaphor) is an ANNUAL plant not a permanent tree. It dies and re-grows every season. Can we be brave enough to die and re-grow every generation? Along the same line I know a pastor who is thinking she’s ready for a change, for a new job… she’s thinking of sending out a PIF. Knowing her awesome church I did slip her something to think about — maybe she’ll get a new job, a new position, a new activity description, at the same place! could it happen on a wider scale?

Grace and Peace,Bruce.
Thanks for your timely blog on the church and membership. If the
“Generation Theory” writers are correct we have entered a new generation cycle. This is the time for creating new organizational structures to serve the new generation cycle. The organizations created in the 1940s and 1950s have served well. Now it is time to think about new ways of being church. Personally, I believe that the decline is a positive sign as well as sign of this period of transition. We might begin with asking how the church can better reflect the radical teachings of the prophets of Israel, Jesus and Paul. We may need to lose our life in order to let God show us our new life. I have further throughts on my blog: http://www.saltandlightpages.com.

Bruce, thank you for your very timely blog on numbers. If the “Generation Theory” folks are accurate, we are in fact in a period of time when new institutional structures are needed to meet the life of the new generation cycle. The ones created in the 1950s and 60s served well the needs of the generations at the time. Perhaps, we need to look at how the decline is an opportunity to follow God’s spirit into a new generation cycle that creates a church structure that reflects in a new way the radical teachings of the prophets, Jesus and Paul. A faithful time if we chose to let God make us faithful. It may be time to lose our life in order to find it. I have a few thoughts about a different way of being church on my blog:www.saltandlightpages.com

Good post, Bruce. I think underlying our malaise, as well as oher mainline churches in North America is the assumption that we have or even know what “church” is. I don’t mean he shpe of the church, traditional, emerging/emergent, etc. But I mean church in a really basic sense. One way I try to get at that is to ask folks to read Matthew 18:15-20 and then ask them if they can honestly, with a straight face, and no fingers crossed behind their backs, say they are in a church or know of a church that could and would stand for or even see a need for that level of accountability. I have not been in or known of any in my 30 years of ministry in the PCUSA. I believe the acids of individualism and choice and a consumeristic mindset make it nearly impossible for folks to even imagine the kind of commitment and accountability Jesus envisions for his people. And without that, verything else is pretty much window dressing!
Peace,
Lee

Bruce, not sure where to post, here or FB. Thank you for great reflection!
In serving small rural churches I would say that the keyword is Institution. Most of our battles are about controlling or changing the constitution, the safeguard of the Institution. As you clearly point out death is the future and the willingness to engage/travel with the Spirit through and into resurrection is our challenge.
I believe the PCUSA focuses more on engaging and protecting the institution than in following God. In seminary our church history prof. talked about how the church is the oldest human institution on the planet. I realize now I should have wept at those words.
Will we recognize Calvin and much of the creeds speak to yesterdays world and not today? Will we be able to stop protecting turf and declare the core essentials?
Mine? God: Salvation in Christ Jesus: Led by Spirit. Relationship is more important than knowledge. Rules kill us. Buildings are a close second. Community is not about control but blessing and healing. Worship without unity feels hollow to me.

We are still wrapped up in the “if we build it they will come” mentality AND what I hear sometimes from my dear brothers and sisters is “we built so they should be coming! What’s wrong with THEM?!” Yet when I read the NT I see disciples who were going OUT into the culture and meeting people and serving them where they were both physically and spiritually.
Sadly I think we are too much like the rich, young ruler who could not give up all his possessions to follow Jesus. We in the North American Church have too many things to give up – land, buildings, budgets, programs, traditions, egos. Could we do as Jesus asked his disciples, to go out into all the various towns with no money or provisions? Trusting that someone will feed us and give us a place to sleep? All to perform miraculous healings and share the Good News?
Which begs another question: has our church actually produced disciples who would be willing to give everything up to represent Jesus out in the world?

Bruce,
I believe the short reason for our decline is that we are creating more barriers to Jesus Christ than we are opening doors.
I think this is the reason for decline in Christianity throughout the Western world, regardless of denomination. People don’t see Christ in the institutional heritages, occasional political infighting, and well-maintained properties. I don’t think most people see Christ in professional preaching, high-quality music, or well-crafted worship centers, either. And those who do come to know Christ don’t aspire to committee participation, endless intellectual learning, or “friendly family” churches.
We, individually and collectively, must reclaim a passionate, outrageous love affair with Christ. We need to grab hold of the experience of Christ that apocalyptically changed our lives, that motivates us to the point of martyrdom, that is the reason and source of new life.
I suspect many of our brothers and sisters don’t even know Christ. I don’t say this to slight anyone, but to lift up a very real illness in the Body. That anyone could participate in a church and not intimately know our Lord is lamentable. We must cling to Christ and express him throughout our lives. If we cannot we really should just close the doors.

Great post, Geoff. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I am a mother of three young adults who grew up in the PCUSA, and I get really angry sometimes because I feel like the church has utterly let them down. I was just in a meeting last night where the youth program at my church was discussed, and I was a little disturbed that we were patting ourselves on the back for having a basically good youth program. But at age 18 we dump these students by the wayside, right at the time many are still struggling to understand what they believe in the face of a culture that tells them religion is irrelevant, and – in the case of strident atheists – dangerous. So absolutely, we as a denomination have to address this big time. (And while I’m venting here, I had one Session member tell me, when I suggested we needed to figure out how to reach 18-25 year olds, that “we don’t do enough to reach people our own (middle) age” which is true, but it was a total smokescreen, because ultimately what she was suggesting was to do nothing at all in terms of reaching out to anyone)

Hello Bruce,
Thanks for raising this important issue for our church. This is the subject that I wanted to talk with you about in relation to campus ministry because I think it tells a lot about the future of the church. I work at Stanford as a campus minister and as you may know, our denomination along with other mainline denominations, began to cut back on funding of campus ministry back in the 60s through the 80s. So in my capacity as the campus minister for United Campus Christian Ministry (UCCM) at Stanford, I represent the Presbyterians, Methodists, UCC, American Baptists, & Disciples of Christ denominations. All of those denominations together are supporting part of my single half-time position. By comparison, the Catholic community at Stanford has 8 staff positions and the Jewish community has 9 staff! What do you think that tells us about the future of the church?
One of the examples I use when I talk to congregations is I explain to them that major companies like Apple, Microsoft, HP, Dell, etc. spend millions of dollars in subsidizing the software and hardware purchases of students on campus for two reasons: 1)they know that this is an unparalleled opportunity to reach their prospective customers and 2)they know that if they can get their product into the hands of these prospective customers now, they will be much more likely to use their product after the leave the university. I believe it is the same situation that we have for communicating the value and importance of the church in the lives of the students. If we think that they will return to the church after they leave, we are making the wrong bet.
Thanks much,
Geoff

Great post, for which I have no answers. The question about why we are declining is too complex to sum up neatly. The answers I may have given a year ago while serving a suburban church are vastly different than the answers I find now that I am serving a rural church. I serve a church that I am dragging back from the edge of becoming a statistic. It is in a town that time has forgotten. The youngest people in our church are 8 and 14, and the next youngest is their mother, 39. Most young adults leave town for college and never come back, or they leave to find jobs. I am knocking myself out to help them let go of past mind-sets and practices that no longer serve them, trying to give them hope that if they are willing to embrace a new vision and mission for themselves in this small, depressed town, they will once again have a vital and transforming ministry. I’ve got key leaders on board, excited about a new future, but is that enough? They can only afford me for about 2 more months, after which, they will, hopefully, continue the work but with a new structure of leadership. The questions you ask, and the answers people give, they are good, but they don’t work here where people are leaving town in droves. I feel that the key here is economic development. That, paired with their new energy and vision, just might keep them from becoming another denominational statistic, and might even help them grow. So the questions about post modernity and young adults and cultural shifts are all contextual. For some of us, hte issues are more basic.

Bruce… thanks for your thoughtful set of questions regarding the Presbyterian Church which apply to Christianity in general and other traditions as well… first off, while some focus/worry about numbers and size, I am way more concerned about what Kind of Church we are than in what Size of Church we were, we are, we will become.
Second, if we embraced the mysteries of God, life, love and each other more and let go of thinking we have it all figured out, and let go of dogma and law…then God’s love could flow more naturally in and through all of us. As a gay man and Christian navigating our Church, it is my hope and prayer that we would stop throwing sticks in each others’ path and let God’s love be the bridge among all of God’s children…

Bruce… I struggle with those who refuse to admit times are actually changing, as if that devalues the world of our past. I am constantly searching for ways to validate the modern values while straddling the ways of postmodernity.
I most appreciate the way you have embraced moving beyond the world of young adults. As an “insider” spokesperson for young adults in the PC(USA) for so long, it is important to recognize the young, too, grow up. While I will still hold onto my young adult status for a few more years, I have put myself in check quite a few times recently. I am no longer the youngest voice or the only young adult voice. It’s a great reminder for those who have been paving the way… we might need get out of the way to allow even newer ideas to have space… and to meet them with hospitality.

Good post Bruce. I enjoyed your article and thought you made some excellent points. Mainly, our culture continues to change around us and as our denomination ages, our overall interest and enthusiasm to stay connected to that change decreases (not in all but in many). I believe we must seek God’s creation of a church within a church. We need to comfort and minister to those who enjoy the status quo but also remember we have a calling to build up the church for new and future generations. Christ is before us and we need to follow him. All the best and in Christ, Tom

Bruce Reyes-Chow

One of those “consultant” types who spends his time, blogging, teaching, speaking and writing. He also happens to be a Presbyterian Teaching Elder, father to three daughters, smug San Franciscan and FANatic of the Oakland Athletics Baseball club. Thanks for reading.